Market Watch

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa): Losing access to foreign capital markets is tough, especially for a statist government with a number of fingers in a number of economic pies. Ethiopia has had to lean on its underdeveloped domestic financial sector to keep the machinery of state going, and it is now dealing with the second-round effects of this approach: strong domestic money growth is amplifying the liquidity imbalance between hard currency and birr supply. Staying…

DAKAR (Capital Markets in Africa) – S&P Global Ratings anticipates that the Senegalese president, Macky Sall, may find it more difficult to implement his reform agenda following the parliamentary elections on Aug. 7, 2022. Preliminary results indicate that, for the first time since Senegal gained its independence in 1960, the incumbent president’s coalition has lost its parliamentary majority. Of the 165 seats in the Senegalese parliament, the president’s coalition Beno Bokk Yakaar (United in Hope),…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Cryptocurrencies sank Friday, taking Bitcoin to the lowest level in more than five months as risk aversion again swept across global markets. The largest cryptocurrency dropped as much as 7.4% to $38,261, while second-ranked Ether slid below $3,000. Digital tokens overall have shed some $1 trillion in value since a November peak, according to CoinMarketCap data. “Bitcoin and the broader crypto market remain subject to the whims of macro variables,” Fundstrat Digital…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t over yet, but the boom it helped create for stay-at-home stocks appears to be vanishing. Netflix Inc. and Peloton Interactive Inc., two of the highest-profile stars of the lockdown era, both plunged Thursday — the latest sign that investors have moved on from the so-called pandemic trade. Netflix expects to add a paltry 2.5 million users in the current quarter, well short of estimates. Peloton, meanwhile, is slashing…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — BUA Group, which owns Nigeria’s second-biggest cement plant, said it plans to finish building a 200,000-barrel-per-day refinery by 2025. “We are looking to between three and four years” to complete construction, Chief Executive Officer Abudul Samad Rabiu told reporters in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. The company on Wednesday signed an agreement with France-based Axens SA to build the facility in Nigeria’s southeastern Akwa Ibom state, Rabiu said, declining to…